What gold lies on NSSF’s land in Lubowa?

A man stands in a graveyard on the land land that now belongs to NSSF.

About one kilometre north of the Lubowa-based Quality Supermarket on the Kampala-Entebbe highway lies a chunk of land.

As you make your way to the prime land, through the upper side of the supermarket, you are immediately opened to a vast piece of land stretching miles apart.

Since it has not been in use, there is no proper road (tarmac) connecting through. The murram road is small and muddy during the rainy season. As you continue, you see various gardens of cassava, maize, sweet potatoes, among others.

On your way downwards, you see houses - not your modern-day type of houses - but rather two-roomed structures.

The structures
These dilapidated housing units were built for the locals by Whites who had coffee, vanilla and sim sim plantations on the same land in the 1940s.
The land that initially belonged to Buganda Kingdom officials, was given to the Whites as a ‘grant’ for crop production.

According to one of the occupants, Josephine Ndinaabazungu, the Whites felt pity for their late parents who were staying in grass-thatched houses and built for them better houses.

Besides building houses, the residents were also employed to work on the plantations so that they could make a living too.

Something else that strikes you on this land are the graves on the western side of the poor houses.
Asked which people are buried there, Ndinaabazuungu says, “our parents”.

Points of contention
However, during the trial of this case, a government surveyor, John Byane Lutaaya, denied ever seeing any graves on the land.
Moving further down the land, are sugarcane and banana gardens.

Since there was a court order to have pastor Kyambadde vacate the land and pay NSSF Shs100m in damages, the other occupants on the land said they are were born there and could only leave if compensated.

“Well, this is not the first time. These people have in the past issued us with eviction notices. We were born here and have grown up here, why do they expect us to go…?” asks another resident, only identified as Namatovu.

She adds: “But if they relocate us to another place or compensate us, we shall relocate in peace.”

On the far eastern part of the land, lies a beautiful basketball court, a church, a volleyball court, a school made out of timber, a guest house and other residential houses.

Fate beckons
Uncertainty looms over the church members, following the court eviction orders to their pastor but the same pastor insists that he is lawfully occupying the land as he inherited it (kibanja) from his mother and there is no way NSSF could claim ownership.
He also denied owning the school located next to his church as alleged by NSSF.

About a month ago, Justice Andrew K Bashaija of the Land Division of the High Court, ruled that pastor Kyambadde is a trespasser on NSSF’s land.
To that effect, the judge ordered that he be evicted, plus pay Shs100 million in damages for trespassing on the land in question.
The judge also ordered that the structures he had erected on the 2.17 acres of land, be demolished, including the church and courts.

Pastor Kyambadde at his church in Lubowa. Photo by Eddie Chicco

But Pastor Kyambadde has since appealed against the verdict before the Court of Appeal, with the hope of reclaiming possession of the land.

Kyambadde claims the trial judge did not consider other structures built on the same land by other people, but only went after his.

NSSF acquired the same land from National Housing and Construction Company, Uganda Company Holdings Ltd in 2003 to erect a 2,741 housing estate units that are projected to cost about $400 million (about Shs1.3 trillion) for 10 years.
Shortly after the successful verdict, NSSF Managing Director Richard Byarugaba warned other encroachers on its other properties that they are coming after them too.

Behind the scenes
Other contestants. This same chunk of land also has interests from other parties. More than 30 relatives of the late Buganda Kingdom prince Yusuf Suuna Kiwewa and Princess Kasalina Nkinzi had accused NSSF of snatching this land.

However, these claims were dismissed by Ms Sarah Kulata, the commissioner for land registration in the Ministry of Lands who in her statement said the land rightly belongs to NSSF.

But one of the descendants of Suuna, Joseph Juuko Kiyimba, had in an earlier interview expressed surprise of how NSSF had acquired ‘their’ land from Uganda Company Holdings Ltd without their consent.

He added that they have a will of their late father Suuna which was made in 1945 as their evidence to prove that they are the rightful owners and that they have never leased it out or even sold it to NSSF.